The Orange County Register’s Sunday Real Estate section has won the top honor for “Best Newspaper Real Estate or Home Section” in the National Association of Real Estate Editor’s annual journalism competition.

In awarding the gold award to the Register, NAREE judges cited the section’s user-friendly reporting and writing, as well as visual presentation.

“This is a nicely laid out section with a lot of stories and helpful information relating to real estate. The writing is interesting and the photography adds tremendously to the stories,” the judges wrote.

Reporters Marilyn Kalfus and Jeff Collins, columnist Jonathan Lansner and editor Samantha Gowen were named on the award.

The second-place silver award went to the Wall Street Journal’s Mansion section; the bronze award went to the Santa Fe New Mexican.

The Washington Post received an honorable mention.

Collins and Kalfus also won individual awards for stories that ran in 2016.

Collins took silver awards for a collection of residential real estate stories and a “groundbreaking” series on the federal Section 8 program for low-income renters.

“The writer dealt with designing a $500 million home (the most expensive in the world), what a person needs to know to become a real estate agent, and Section 8 housing. The latter story was an excellent explanation of the Section 8 housing program and its ins and outs,” the judges wrote.

Kalfus won the gold award for best short blog post and an honorable mention for a collection of residential real estate stories.

“The stories focused on the contrast between over-the-top amenities in high-end housing … while those in more modest communities had to commute hours to work. The contrast was stunning, and the writer captured the contradictions in a highly readable style,” the judges wrote.

The blog post was about a Huntington Beach home that had been owned by former Bell city manager Robert Rizzo, who went to prison.